Wireless networks rely on a large number of individual base stations to provide high capacity wireless services over large coverage areas such as market areas (e.g., cities), surrounding residential areas (e.g., suburbs, counties), highway corridors and rural areas. Continuous radio connectivity across these large coverage areas is accomplished via user mobility from one base station to others as the user traverses the network's operating area. High reliability mobility in mobile wireless networks minimizes the number of dropped calls or other abnormal discontinuations of radio service to the supported users.
Self-Organizing or Self-Optimizing Network (SON) technology provides automated processes that support the configuration and optimization of communication networks. For example, SON optimization processes may continuously run on a network in order to continuously monitor and/or optimize the performance of the network and the network elements or managed objects (e.g., base stations, cells, and so on) in the network. SON processes may be limited in their reach in a network, where some SON processes only run for certain network elements (e.g., elements within a suburb), while other SON processes run for other network elements (e.g., elements along a highway corridor). In some cases, such modifications to a communication network may cause unintended or unwanted problems or configurations.